LETTERS
Editor: Theodore Draper, whose self-esteem has risenwith the passing years as he continues to receivethe adulation of those whose criterion for scholarship is anti-Communism with footnotes,...
...q LETTERS...
...About the same time, the leading left-wing locals in the InternationalLadies' Garment Workers' Union were expelled...
...It is whether the American Communistsdecided to organize the TUUL as a result of their"expulsion from the AFL unions," as Foner putit originally...
...5 (dated April 1, 1928), skips immediately to vol...
...In fact, he admits thatthe "Communists and their allies" decided that "they could no longer function inside the AFL...
...I happen to know these things because I was staff director of the group of organizers which created the CCC from June 1970 until just before its founding convention in December 1970...
...It would also misrepresent the history of the CCC to suggest that it stood up strongly against red-baiting...
...In his letter, Foner has wisely retreated from this extreme position...
...A parallel goal was to exploit interest generated by the strike to involve the community in the equally important matter of quality education...
...Did the founders merely want to gain influence in the AFL or did they seek to destroy it and take itsplace...
...The circumstances were peculiar to the needle trades...
...The American Communists certainly did not consider the garment trades' expulsions as "an important factor" to justify a dual trade-union center or they wouldnot have opposed the latter as long as they daredto do so...
...The above are all peripheral to Lynd's principal complaint—that I did not mention his name in the piece...
...Foner has changed my "most notable case" into "the last expulsions occurred in 1923...
...Steel's coke ovens under the Gary air pollution ordinance belongs not to CCC but to another organization, CARP (Community Action to Reverse Pollution...
...I took on this task at the request of the two organizers Krickus mentions, Jim Wright and Mike Barnes...
...they merely wish to have a monopoly of it, with impunity...
...STAUGHTON LYND RICHARD KRICKus replies: It's true that Hammond was established before Gary, that the appropriate date for the Memorial Day Massacre is 1937, and that the people in Lowell did not win their battle with the developers...
...The CCC won a share of the glory by appearing at the city council meeting which passed the amendment, but played a very secondary role in the struggle...
...As for Foner's recommendation that I should revise my article on the basis of The Coal Digger, I refuse to believe that he can be serious...
...Lynd's claim that the Industrial Areas Foundation and the Catholic Church caved in to redbaiting does not conform with the facts...
...4. The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law abandoned interest in a suit to force U.S...
...On this basic point, Foner now has nothing to say in his own defense...
...The redbaiting, which was directed at the IAF organizers and several community leaders, did escalate later when Lynd's involvement in the organizing effort was publicized...
...2. The effort to build community support for discharged teachers in Hanover Township failed...
...There may well have been some misunderstanding here...
...But the real issue is something else...
...It is an undeniable, irrevocable fact that virtually the entire Amerian Communist leadership, especially William Z. Foster, opposed turning theTUEL into a dual union on the order of the TUUL...
...I should like to correct some of its inaccuracies...
...Re Calumet Community Congress Editor: Richard Krickus's article in the Winter 1972 DISSENT contains an account of the organization of the Calumet Community Congress in Lake County, Indiana...
...On the first point, Foner seems to have quietly resigned himself to the truth, and on the second point, he has made a partial retraction that is still far from the truth...
...I repeat: The issues posed by Foner originally were whether the Communists conceived of the TUUL as a dual union and whether the expulsions had anything to do with the decision in Moscow...
...The expulsionshave now become no more than "an importantfactor...
...There is one more point...
...The Columbia University file starts with vol...
...It would misrepresent the history of the CCC if for that reason I were to become an "un person" in written accounts of what 656 happened...
...Lynd is mistaken when he implies that the only reason Sedlak organized the community in Hanover Township was to assist the striking teachers...
...Scornfully he notes that the last expulsions occurred in 1923...
...He maintained that it was "simply a means of advancing the program of organizing the unorganized until theprogressive forces once again gained influence inthe A. F. of L." The main issue, then, was whether the TUUL was conceived of as a dual union...
...12, and ends with March 1930 (the last two issues were apparently misplaced...
...When Draper gets around to revising his article, he might consult The Coal Digger, the official organ of the National Miners' Union, a file ofwhich is in the Columbia University Library...
...5. The trailer court issue in Lowell was lost, not won...
...But itis not good enough...
...They have now formed a new organization, the Calumet Action League (CAL...
...In my article, I wrote that "the most notablecase" of an expulsion of a Communist by the AFLwas that of William F. Dunne in 1923...
...This is a welcome improvement...
...In any event, Dunne wasexpelled by an AFL convention, by the AFL itself...
...But IAF continued to support its organizers and the Catholic Church continued to provide the organizers with the funds they needed to found the Congress...
...On February 10, 1972, long-standing dissension resulted in the withdrawal of 14 of 18 members of the CCC Executive Committee, including its president and first vice-president...
...Editor: Theodore Draper, whose self-esteem has risenwith the passing years as he continues to receivethe adulation of those whose criterion for scholarship is anti-Communism with footnotes, ridiculesmy assertion that the Trade Union Unity Leaguewas formed, in part, by expulsions of Communistsand other left-wing militants inside the AFL...
...Instead, like other organizations with which the Industrial Areas Foundation and the Catholic Church have been associated, it caved in to red-baiting...
...One comes across this double standard all the time...
...Steel to pay its fair share of taxes about a year ago, when it became clear that the Hatcher administration was not sufficiently interested to put up money for the suit...
...It was based on an international perspective, noton the American garment industry...
...The developers in Ross Township did correct a faulty sewer system and I do not know what Lynd means when he refers to a "comprehensive settlement...
...However, there is the slight factthat on March 2, 1927, 37 Communist and leftwing officials of the New York Joint Board of theInternational Fur Workers' Union (AFL) and locals 1, 5, 10, and 15, comprising the bulk of the International's membership, were expelled frommembership in the union...
...This reads suspiciously like a confession that the Communists did view the TUUL as a dual union...
...The decision was made in Moscow...
...3. Credit for the amendment to bring U.S...
...CARP worked for months on the issue, enlisted the support of a long list of community organizations, and its members personally visited city councilmen...
...I, no...
...I was thinking of AFL expulsions similar tothat of Dunne...
...If one were to say that Foner is a veteran practitioner of "Com munism with footnotes," a cry of "McCarthyism" would undoubtedly be raised...
...The Coal Digger is no help at all to find out what was really happen ing to the union...
...My piece was mailed to DISSENT months prior to the fragmentation of CCC and if I'm not mistaken the Winter issue was in the hands of the printer at that time...
...See"The Communists and the Miners," Spring 1972...
...The Foners of this world are not really opposed to the technique of "McCarthyism...
...He was successful in this objective...
...It is news to me and other observers of CCC, however, that he was the staff director of the organizers during the period he says he was...
...In November 1970 I returned the staff directorship to Jim Wright...
...Thus, like many of the radical organizers who built the CIO, I became expendable as soon as the new institution—in this case the CCC—was securely founded...
...Next, the victories of the CCC are much exaggerated: 1. There was no comprehensive settlement with suburban developers, as the article suggests...
...The first NMU strike of con sequence took place in 1931...
...This article romanticizes and misrepresents an important organizational effort...
...The fur and garment workers' expulsions were the result of a murderous internecine struggle forpower in those unions only...
...PHILIP S. FONER THEODORE DRAPER replies: In his original version, Foner tried to put overthe idea that "the TUUL was not viewed by itsfounders as a `dual union...
...Staughton Lynd is mistaken when he implies that in my enthusiasm for CCC I exaggerated its performance...
...Finally, it is misleading in an article published in winter 1972 to suggest that all is well with the CCC and that it offers a model for other workingclass communities to follow...
...Since the needle trades' unions comprised themajor force of what was left in the Trade UnionEducational League, the expulsions as late as1927-28 were certainly an important factor in theconclusion reached by Communists and their allies that they could no longer function inside theAFL to seek changes in the policies of the Federation, changes which Draper himself concedes werelong overdue, and that they had to organize outside the Federation...
...To begin with, Hammond was founded before not after Gary, and the Memorial Day Massacre before the gates of Republic Steel in South Chicago took place in 1937 not 1936...
...Thus the file runs out just as the National Miners' Union began to organize seriously...
...The most charitablething that might be said about this change of"most notable" into "last" is that it is a case of curious carelessness...
...One of Jim Wright's first acts after the successful founding convention on December 5, 1970, was to ask me to withdraw from the organizing staff...
...I never said that CCC was the only organization active in the "Coke Oven Action...
...It was I who was the principal target of red-baiting by the local Democratic party machine...
...But it is perfectly all right for Foner to say that I receive adulation for "anti-Communism with footnotes...
...The people who took me into their confidence in Lake County made it clear that Staughton Lynd was not interested in publicity and I respected that confidence...
...I, no...
Vol. 19 • September 1972 • No. 4
